1. The offering up of animals as a sacrifice to God is an ancient human practice. Cain and Abel offered sacrifices. So did Noah, and Job. The practice is as old as history itself.
2. When the tabernacle system of offering sacrifices was given to Moses at Mt. Sinai, he wrote it down in the Torah. But he wrote it down using terminology that was already in existence. No explanation was needed.
3. The Torah permitted sacrifice only in certain places, at certain times, by certain people, in certain ways, for certain reasons. And so it came about that the practice of animal sacrifice was codified - or made into ceremonial law.
4. The Hebrew word "Qorbanot" really does not mean "sacrifice" or "offering." It actually means "to draw near." The real purpose of the Old Testament sacrifices was to draw people close to God.
5. It should be pointed out that animal sacrifices were not needed to obtain forgiveness of sins. The book of Jonah makes that clear. The people of Nineveh repented and God forgave them. So, in the Old Testament, God accepted the sacrifices of the people as an atonement, or covering, for their sins, only if they had actually repented. And if they had really repented, they were expected to show how real their repentance was by doing good deeds. John the Baptist preached that.
6. Some of the sacrifices were used to cleanse people from ritual impurity (for example if they had touched a dead body). That type of sacrifice had nothing at all to do with sin. It was just ritual cleansing.
7. Some of the sacrifices were "thank offerings" and some were "fellowship offerings." In that way sacrifices were similar to prayer and praise. The idea was to draw people closer to God.
8. Some of the sacrifices were for sin. We'll talk about that later in this lesson.
9. There were three important ideas associated with making sacrifices. They are these:
- Giving: A person has to give something that actually costs him something. For example domestic animals were used for animal sacrifices instead of wild animals because domestic animals actually belonged to the person making the sacrifice.
- Substitution: The sacrifice is somehow punished. Whatever happens to the sacrifice is something that should have happened to the person. This helps the person understand the awful penalty of sin, and God's much greater grace.
- Coming Closer: The idea of making a sacrifice is to bring the person closer to God.
10. The domestic animals given in sacrifice were these: goats, sheep, bulls, or doves. These were all "clean" animals.
11. The types of sacrifices and offerings were these:
Olah: Burnt Offering The burnt offering represented submission to God's will. No part of the burnt offering was eaten by anyone. Since the offering represents complete submission to the will of God the entire offering is burnt. It was burnt to ashes on the bronze altar in front of the temple. The burnt offering expresses a desire to commune with God. Sin is dealt with incidentally since how can you commune with God if you are tainted by sin.
Zebach Sh'lamim: Peace Offering The peace offering is an offering of thanksgiving. Some of it was burned on the bronze altar, a portion was given to the priests, and the rest was eaten by the man making the offering, and his family. This type of offering was required for survivors of life threatening crises, otherwise it was a freewill offering, or an offering made after the fulfillment of a vow. This offering was not an offering for sin. The Hebrew word sh'lamim comes from the word "shalom" meaning peace, or wholeness since the Hebrew concept of peace is a total sense of well being.
Chatat: Sin Offering It is important to know that a sin offering is not just for the purpose of atoning for sin. The idea was also to purge that sin. The sin offering was an expression of sorrow for the error and a desire to be reconciled with God. The Hebrew word "chatat" means missing the mark. A sin offering could only be made for unintentional sins, or "iniquities," not for intentional, malicious sins. The size of the offering depended upon the financial ability of the sinner. Some Sin Offerings were individual, others were communal since we are all responsible for one another's sins. Chatat offeings were eaten by the priests. It made a lot of sense to offer these sacrifices every day, at morning and at evening, so the priests could eat.
Asham: Guilt Offering A Guilt Offering was given to atone for the sin of stealing something from the altar, or for breach of trust, or for when a person was not aware of what his sin might be, but thought he may have done something wrong. Asham sacrifices were eaten by the priests.
Minchah: Meal Offering Food and drink offerings (meal offerings) represented giving the result of a person's work to God because it took work to grind the grain into flour or "meal." A small piece of this offering was burnt on the altar and the rest was eaten by the priests. There were also offerings of undiluted wine called "nesekh."
Parah Adumah: The Red Heifer This sacrifice is discussed in great detail in auxiliary lesson 27.
As far as I know, the priests had to officiate at all of these sacrifices. Every sacrifice had to take place in the temple except for the Red Heifer sacrifice. That took place within sight of the temple. In fact, that sacrifice had to be done in a very specific location where the officiating priest could look into the temple through its open doors and see the altar of incense in front of the veil that hid the ark of the covenant.
In the Old Testament the priests had to be descended from the tribe of Levi, and even more specifically, they had to be descended from the first High Priest, Aaron. After the time of David they had to be descended from Zaddock. The book of Malachi was written to the priests. In the New Testament many of the priest believed in Jesus. (Acts 6:7)
next lesson: Zealots
previous lesson: Sanhedrin
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